Mighty Morphin Starfleet Rangers II: Enemy Mine
by PencilGuardian
Summary: Rita Repulsa tries again to conquer the Federation, and Ensign Chekov tries to fit in.
1. Chapter 1

Rita was lost. She'd built her scepter with a failsafe transporter function, but the Ruby Ranger's flying star had destroyed the focusing crystal. She was lucky not to have materialized inside a star, or back in her prison jar.

Rita supposed she should be grateful for that, but it was hard to feel anything but rage when she was cowering in a shallow crater, using the last of her scepter's fading power to broadcast a fitful static shield against a hurricane. She didn't even have the power to transform her clothes into something more weather-appropriate, so she waited out the storm the same way she'd waited out much of her incarceration: cursing Zordon at the top of her lungs.

Once, she had ruled it all! Oh, the grand vision she once had! Once, not a drop of liquid had dared rain down anywhere in the cosmos without her permission! Zordon, by contrast, wanted to let the weeds grow. He had fought her, and was determined to keep fighting her, and for what? To let anarchy and entropy run wild? How could he claim to cherish free will and chaos, when his shelves had creaked under the weight of his carefully-crafted bottles and jars?

She shivered, half from hypothermia, and half from fury at how thoroughly her work had been undone. The only solace she could take was that their final duel had appeared to have either crippled him substantially, or else he had gone truly mad with power. Zordon had always faced his challengers directly, but somehow he'd scraped together enough raw material and high energy to create Rangers to fight in his stead.

_Rangers. _The word had an unpleasant thought-texture, like goo. Rangers were always the last recourse of wizards grown decrepit from excesses of power. But if Zordon thought to intimidate her, he was mistaken. She wasn't going away. Oh, no! She would persist, and drain every glimmer of power out of Zordon's desolate remains. One way or another, she would rise again and take back what was hers!

A mighty crash of lightning and thunder erupted over her head, and Rita curled into a tight ball as carbonized debris from the lip of the crater spilled down on top of her. The sloped crater wall gave way, and she lost her footing, falling and gasping for air as she was buried in a suffocating, paralyzing weight of dust and rock. Her weak static shield was no match for it, and it failed entirely with a spark and a brief whiff of ozone. She held her breath as the darkness and silence enveloped her again. Dust trickled down Rita's collar and shifted across her back like millions of tiny fingers, and for a second, it was if she'd never escaped her stone bucket at all. Was she still in there, hallucinating this oppressive weight of rubble that held her?

Rita had endured ten thousand years of incorporeal suspension in her prison. At first, her mind had been convinced that she still had a physical body. She could wiggle her toes and feel her heart beat. But over time, the sensations became disorganized. She would wake from sleep feeling as if her arms and legs were rapidly coiling themselves into springs, or that her neck was growing, launching her head through space at a dizzying speed. Her hands had slowly disappeared. The erosion started at the tips of her fingers and progressed upwards til it stopped at her elbows and tingled maddeningly. She had screamed in agony as her toes curled back on the tops of her feet, and her torso twisted at the waist, her head and shoulders in one direction, her waist and legs in the opposite.

For a time, she was convinced Zordon had killed her, and her spirit had ended up in the Never Place. But when she had calmed down enough to consider her situation, she realized that Zordon, for all his intensity, would not have killed her. It wasn't his way. His obsession with the non-lethal Ridding Ways had always confounded her, but Zordon had always had a predilection for the obscure. His cursed pottery wheel, his collection of jars that grew as the number of his opponents dwindled. In the utter void of her prison she finally put it all together, and resigned herself to wait, and to imagine her victory yet to come.

So, Rita had passed the millenia in a state of lucid dreaming, crafting an entire universe of experience and sensation within her own mind. Vivid hallucinations of countless worlds on which she designed innumerable fortresses; she invented tools and technology with which to conquer the universe, conversed with mentors and fought with adversaries. She was Queen Empress of All Creation in a thousand different ways, of thousands of different worlds, richly and submissively populated. Over and over again, she imagined herself escaping her prison and destroying Zordon. She played it through her mind so often that the details had begun to fade like writing on parchment. So each time, she found novel, more excruciating ways to exact her revenge, and each time, it worked perfectly.

Until the Yellow Ranger shot her with his gun, and waves of real, paralyzing pain exploded through her nerves. That was when she finally realized her dream had come true, that she was finally free.

Some wake up call!

The smell of raw earth filled her nostrils, and her limbs began to feel heavy and tingly.

Then, she felt a strong vibration as her prison of debris began to break apart. She heard a loud mechanical rumble as air and light assaulted her senses. She gasped greedily, tumbling out of the collapsed bank.

Rita staggered to her feet, bracing herself on her broken scepter and coughing clouds of dust. The storm had passed, and the day was bright, grey and cold. She straightened, and beheld her savior: a spidery, hydraulic contraption half again as tall as she was, made of a patchwork of metal joints that looked like camouflage against the shifting grey clouds overhead. Its six legs were arrayed around a central potbellied pillar. One of the legs ended in a forked shovel that was slicing down through the pile of rubble. A slot on the machine's belly opened and the shovel retracted, dumping a load of crushed rock and dust inside. Moving behind the machine, Rita saw stenciling on the central pillar:

PROcessing and SPECTrometry for Ore Recovery

PROSPECTOR

UNIT

_property of_

_GALACTIC MINING CORP._

Rita uttered a wheezing laugh. A mining station! Luck was still on her side. She spotted a small control panel on the central pillar and approached, using part of her tattered cape to mask the clouds of dust billowing from the shovel. A few taps at the keypad, and Rita discovered that the machine was programmed to return to base when its load was full, a determination it made based on weight.

She checked the machine's capacity, and then raced around to the front and scrambled into the shovel as it scraped towards the debris pile again. The shovel stopped, lifted, and withdrew towards the open slot on its belly. Rita braced herself for the tip, and landed in a crouch on the pile of rock inside. The slot began to close, but Rita stuck her scepter in it to keep it open. She'd already been trapped in a pile debris once today, _thanks very much_!

Her calculations proved accurate. She heard the hydraulics whine and hum through the bowels of the metal beast as the shovel docked, and the legs began to lift the central pillar off the ground. With a mighty lurch, the machine climbed out of the shallow crater and began its lumbering trek. She braced herself against the walls of the storage compartment as it lurched side-to-side. Grit pressed into her fingertips, and the air was heavy with metallic dust and hot machinery. It felt good to be alive!

From a distance, the mining complex looked like a moderately-sized city. Huge, hulking domes lurked on the horizon, but they were soon revealed to be rows of massive storage silos. Rising over the silos was a veritable maze of pipes and infrastructure that periodically belched black fumes and flame, and sprawled for several kilometers in every direction. She could see other machines, similar in design to the PROSPECTOR Unit, drifting in and out of the metalworks, screeching and crashing as they moved their limbs in tireless function. At the center of the mechanical maze, Rita spotted an open space that was probably a launch pad.

The complex was bordered by a line of metal pillars with high-tension cables strung between them. The pillars towered so high that Rita got vertigo as she looked up at them. A gust of wind brought a cloud of dust with it, and when it impacted the fence, the air between the cables shimmered and buzzed with green-yellow energy. An electromagnetic shield fence, Rita realized, feeling her hair begin to stand up as the lumbering PROSPECTOR carried her through a gap in the fence.

Scanning her surroundings through the open slot, she quickly realized that this station appeared to be totally automated. Then she spotted a homely building nestled at the end of a row of silos. It wasn't too difficult to pull herself up over the edge of the slot and drop to the ground, snatching her scepter and rolling clear of the PROSPECTOR's giant legs. She'd quickly sensed that this planetoid had relatively low gravity. She got up and made for the building.

It was very plain, with a single automatic door at ground level, and two rows of slitted windows above. A plaque by the door read:

_RHO INDUS ALPHA CRACKING STATION _

Operated by

GALACTIC MINING CORP.

UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS

_Contract No. 1284 . 07 . 5C_

A slow smile spread across Rita's face. Still in the Federation? Even better.

The door wasn't locked and slid open for her. Light panels flickered to life as she stepped inside. It was a foyer or primitive airlock of some kind. After the door behind her had closed, the one in front of her opened, revealing a computerized control center. Rita took amusement from how similar the design of this facility was in comparison to the base on Iota Draconis. Mass production was always the saving grace of empire-building.

A huge computer screen across the back wall caught her eye. It was a star map. How thoughtful of the Federation to always make sure their uninvited guests knew where they were! Gleefully, Rita explored the database, cackling aloud to herself at what she discovered. Rho Indus Alpha wasn't just a mine and refinery. It was the _largest_ mine and refinery in this quadrant of the galaxy. The planetoid was small in size, but incredibly dense with mineralogical resources. Those silos held vast reserves of dilithium crystals, deuterium, plasma coolant and just about every other critical chemical compound that every starship and starbase in the Federation needed, not to mention even larger stores of the raw materials to make them. What wasn't excavated locally was regularly shipped in from other systems, and the final productes were shipped out at Warp speed to other ships, space stations and outposts in the neighboring systems. The outpost even had its own fleet of orbital cargo shuttles.

It was a massive strategic flaw on the Federation's part, and Rita could scarcely contain her excitement. Turning from the computer bank, she opened another door and found herself in a spare, clearly neglected office. But there was a large display case mounted on one wall, full of mineral specimens that had come from the planet's crust. Rita's eyes fixed on one of them, a cloudy, spiky chunk of amber crystal. Just the thing to repair her broken scepter!

She had been out of her right mind last time, still reeling from her long captivity. _This _time, she would strike at the very heart of this fragile civilization; _this _time, she would be unstoppable!

Rita began to laugh. High, scratchy from inhaled dust and screaming, her voice bounced off the walls, the only living sound on the entire planetoid.

* * *

Ensign Pavel Chekov was only a few more hits away from exploding the space slug, but every time his shuttle got within torpedo range, the slug would launch endless salvos of spawn at him. He was having trouble navigating around them, and if he tried to shoot them, he risked running out of torpedoes before he could take out the slug. So close!

A meal tray clattered onto the tabletop beside him. Pavel startled, pressed the wrong button and sent his tiny spaceship right into a cluster of spawn. The PADD speakers uttered a despairing little tune, and the words GAME OVER scrolled across the screen. "Hey, what is the big idea?" Pavel complained. He looked up, and felt his annoyance ease slightly. "Oh, sorry, Sulu."

"No, it's my fault. My arms are a little tired from fencing practice. It was drop it here, or on the floor. The meal cubes are surprisingly...heavy today." Sulu grimaced at the garishly colored protein blocks on his plate.

Pavel followed his gaze and shrugged. "The green ones aren't bad."

Sulu sat down, looking skeptical. "Yeah? What do they taste like?"

"I don't know," Pavel admitted after a moment's thought. "I couldn't place it."

"Great." Sulu poked at the cube, and it jiggled. He recoiled and shook his head. Pavel felt a touch of schadenfreude and smirked. "Still working on those transporter conversions?" Sulu asked, pointing at Pavel's PADD.

Pavel stretched extravagantly. "Finished hours ago, Sulu. Scotty was most pleased with my work. Easy. Nawigating the Denebean Mine Field, that's hard."

"Is that version five?" Sulu asked eagerly, reaching for the PADD.

Pavel slid it towards him with a sigh. "Yes, it came in with this morning's upgrades."

"About time!" Sulu exclaimed, studying the screen and typing. "I've got friends back home who've been telling me about this version for weeks. It's supposed to be really hard, because they've changed it so that when you fire the torpedoes at close range, the game-Wait a second, your saved game. You're already halfway through it?" Sulu stopped and stared at Pavel.

Pavel felt chagrined. "The game physics are a lot more realistic this time. It makes the key commands more awkward."

"More awkward? Nigh impossible, I've heard. I don't know how you do it, man." Sulu put the PADD back on the table.

Pavel scowled deeper. "I have lots of free time."

"What's that mean?" Sulu asked, hesitantly poking his fork into one of the green cubes.

Pavel slouched, staring past Sulu to the one crowded table in the mess hall. The main meal shift had ended nearly an hour ago, but the group-ensigns, huddled tightly around the table-showed no signs of breaking up yet. "Nothing."

Sulu turned his head just in time to see the group burst into hoots of "Klacto! Klacto!" Sulu turned back to Pavel, and his expression was knowing. "There are better things in life than being able to join the Klacto pool."

"I know," Pavel snapped, sinking even lower into his chair, his chin practically resting on his chest. "But it's the principle. 'Sorry, Chekov, we're playing for real credits.' 'We'd love you to join us, Chekov, but you know the rules.'" He glared disgustedly at Sulu. "And then there was, 'Sorry, tyke.' Sorry. Tyke. Who ewen uses a word like 'tyke'?"

Sulu sipped his coffee and winced, but whether it was in sympathy, or a reaction to the bitter brew, Pavel couldn't tell. "Try not to let it bother you. I was living on emergency rations by the time I got smart enough to pull out. You're better off not venturing towards that blackhole."

Pavel rolled his eyes. "But the other day the computer locked me out of a training simulation."

"Why?"

"'Age restriction detected. Simulation locked,'" Pavel recited, gesturing as if the words were a giant invisible banner in front of his face. Sulu sputtered into his coffee cup, rankling Pavel's raw nerves. "That's pretty much how Commander Spock responded, too," he muttered darkly.

"Oh, come on."

"No, really. His eyebrow went up, and I could just tell he was trying not to laugh." Pavel straightened enough to lean closer to Sulu. Dropping his voice, he added, "Not that he'd ewer admit it. No one ewer admits it, but it's always there. Ewer since I was first moved in with the upperclassman, I've always sensed it, eweryone patronising _malchik moy_ Chekov."

"What does that mean?" Sulu asked.

"'_My little boy,'" _Chekov translated, his voice thick with disgust.

"That's ridiculous, Chekov. You're here because you're a genius and great at what you do. Anybody who acts otherwise is just being a jerk. And you're right." He wrinkled his nose, having tried the green cube. "These things taste...weird, but not a bad weird. I don't know."

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm still younger than everybody else on this ship. I just wish I could fit in somewhere." He stewed silently for a moment. Brightening, he said, "Perhaps I should grow a beard."

"If you can," Sulu chuckled.

Pavel rolled his eyes, muttered a Russian epithet he never quite understood but that always seemed to rankle his parents, and stood to leave.

"Aw, come on, Chekov, I meant the regulations. About hair." Sulu pleaded, but Pavel disposed of his tray in the kitchen window and started to walk out. He would have better luck trying the game on the console in his quarters. "Really, don't let it get to you." Sulu was following him, so Pavel paused to hear him out. "Think about it. You've got a post on the bridge of the Federation flagship and a commendation from Starfleet to back it up. That other stuff's small potatoes by comparison."

Pavel started to think about that. The ship comm whistled. The speaker grille was right beside Pavel's arm and he jumped. "Attention, all bridge officers please report to duty stations." It was Uhura. The Klacto game broke up immediately.

"I wonder what's up?" said Sulu.

"Let's find out," Pavel answered, his troubles momentarily averted, as they joined the flow of people out of the mess hall.


	2. Chapter 2

Rita wasn't alone for long. She couldn't be; there was too much work to be done, and the dilithium crystal she'd found for her scepter had impurities, and its crystalline lattice wasn't ideal. It focused her powers well enough, but with an intensity that was an order of magnitude weaker than the original. She ransacked the mineral stores looking for a better one, but the silos were too big, and the

search was wasting valuable time. Smeared with dirt, tired, aching from hours spent climbing the metal infrastructure, Rita chose to rest, and take momentary refuge from the constant cold breeze. The crystal in her scepter was still settling in and building up its charge, and it had just enough power to it to blow open the padlocked door of a small blockhouse. Massive pipes protruded from the flat roof, and a gust of earthy, warm air brushed her face as the door fell in.

Rita walked in, and found herself standing on a gantry. Greenish lights flickered on, revealing a bundle of pipes in the center of the room, and a deep floor. Rita looked over the edge. The floor was arrayed with five giant, circular vats. Each one had a pipe leading from it to the bundle in the center of the room. Rita found a rickety metal staircase, and descended several flights to get a better look at the vats. The earthy smell grew moist, pungent, and surprisingly familiar.

Rita closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to place it.

_A natural cave with a high ledge in the back. She liked to hide there, where she could arrange her crystals and practice her focusing exercises in solitude. The entrance was covered over with an adobe wall that had two windows and a door in it. The place smelled strongly of sun-baked clay and drying herbs. It evoked a confusing mixture of anxiety and nostalgia. The ledge had a low ceiling, and she had developed a crick in her shoulders from spending hours hunched over in concentration. Concentration that was often broken by a nerve-shattering shout of "Ritalna!" that would make her scatter her crystals in panic and fall to the floor, sliding her bruised back against the earthen wall in her rush to obey the large, cloaked figure that filled the adobe doorway._

It was all still there, as vivid in her mind as when it had first happened, given horrible new life by the boredom of ten thousand years. Rita forced herself out of the memory before it could progress, and opened her eyes.

Too late. The figure's voice echoed accusingly through her mind:_ "What have you been doing, Ritalna?"_

"Mud?" Rita said aloud, drowning out the voice in her head.

She approached the nearest vat and stroked the liquid's surface. It was a cold, creamy, orangish substance that was so thick that her finger swipe persisted for several long seconds before finally filling in. The earthy smell was very strong. Yes, it had to be mud. She circled the vats, testing two of the others in the same way. The colors varied, from grey-white to greenish brown, but all shared the heavy viscosity and moist stench. She dipped a finger fully into one of the vats, and was surprised by the heaviness of the coating.

Of course! Drilling mud, made dense with metallic compounds to combat high pressure in drill shafts, and to clean and cool the machinery. Rita thought of all the work she had to do. There were supply ships to sabotage, machines to build...

_"...Linens to wash, and the gobrems haven't been juiced yet, you useless - " A thick finger would stab the air in front of her face, but her attention had always been on the other hand, the one that would swing towards her with loops and loops of heavy, studded cording._

"Haahahaha!" Rita exclaimed, her voice bouncing around the cavernous room, shattering the sounds and sights in her mind. She had a plan, an even better one than before; a plan that would not only hasten her work on the outpost, but lead her to absolute victory over the Federation, and over Zordon. She ran back up two flights of stairs and aimed her scepter at one of the vats. "Rise, dust of the earth! Hang your molecules together in the shape I tell you!" she cried.

The grey-brown mud in the vat began to roil, gently at first, as if subjected to a slight vibration, then more violently, until it was heaving and sloshing from one end of the vat to the other. It spilled over, so thick that it thudded onto the floor instead of splashing, folding over itself and spreading. It began to separate into large, outwardly drifting blobs.

"Take shape!" Rita ordered, gritting her teeth in concentration. She shot a single beam of hot energy from her scepter into the nearest blob. The blob reared up into a cyclinder, then began to undulate and wriggle as parts of it creased and separated, settling into a roughly humanoid form. It was featureless, with mittens for hands and blocks for feet, and mud dripped and oozed all over it.

Rita lowered her scepter slowly. The mud creature remained standing. "Bow to your mistress," she instructed. The mud creature pivoted awkwardly to face her, then lurched forward at the waist, throwing a few tiny gobbets of mud towards her. It held the pose for a few seconds, then wrenched itself upright again, the crease where it bent slowly filling in from the shifting medium of its body. Rita grinned. It was a start. She pointed her scepter at the mud creature. "Multiply," she said.

The mud creature wavered on its feet, then swung around and lumbered towards the nearest mud blob. It stopped in the middle of the puddle. The puddle began to bubble and vibrate, and then to surge up the mud creature's legs, swarming over the mud creature's whole body until it again resembled a tall mud cylinder. Then, the extra mud receded, separated from the mud creature, rolled into a ball next to him, and then wriggled and writhed until was an exact duplicate of the first mud creature. Faceless, they appeared to regard each other for a moment, but then they both turned, and walked towards their own chosen mud puddle.

_Let no one say I can't make friends_, she thought gleefully.

* * *

_Captain's Log, stardate 1103.2:_

_"The Enterprise has been sent to the automated mining outpost on Rho Indus Alpha to pick up a cargo of desperately-needed deuterium fuel for our outlying outposts. However, since arriving in orbit three hours ago, there has been no sign of the orbital tank, and our attempts at communicating with the outpost's computer have been unsuccessful."_

The turbolift doors whispered open, and Pavel stepped onto the bridge, Sulu behind him.

"Power output levels are normal, Captain," Commander Spock announced.

"So it's definitely a computer glitch?" Captain Kirk said, hunched forward in his chair.

"That would seem to be the most reasonable explanation..."

"I sense a 'but,' Mr. Spock."

Pavel glanced at Spock before taking his position at the Nav console, and saw him raise one eyebrow. "The M-17 computing system used by the mining facility has many failsafes and considerable capacity for self-repair. For such a system to malfunction in this way, with no obvious evidence of damage, is unprecedented."

Pavel heard the implication in Spock's words. A glance at Sulu showed he sensed it, too. The turbolift doors opened again, and Scotty came onto the bridge.

Captain Kirk was silent for a beat. "Well, there's a first time for everything, Spock. Disappointing as it may be, not even computers are perfect. And our outposts along the Neutral Zone are waiting for that deuterium. I want you and Scotty to go down there and get the system working again. Take a couple of technicians with you to speed things along. Report back when you've got a handle on the problem."

"Very well, Captain," Spock said. "Mr. Scott, I leave the choice of technicians to your discretion."

"Why thank you, Commander. With Captain's permission, I'll take me own Crewman Angelo, and Ensign Chekov right there, if you can spare him. I'll need someone to check the nav system over there."

"Captain, according to Starfleet regulations, the ensign is underage, and therefore prohibited from assignment to a landing party," Spock said.

Pavel's initial excitement died a fast, humiliating death. _And in front of the whole bridge crew, too, thanks, Commander_.

"What regulations? The lad went with the lot of you to Iota Draconis," Mr. Scott protested.

"Prior to the enaction of regulation six hundred fifty one, paragraph one, made effective on Stardate 109 - "

"Yes, thank you, Spock, but as there is no forseeable danger, and he will be in the company of two senior officers," Captain Kirk said, with an irritated, dismissive wave of his hand. "Lieutenant Riley, relieve the ensign. Mr. Scott, Spock, Ensign Chekov, get your gear together and prepare to beam down."

"Thank you, sir!" Pavel exclaimed, unable to restrain his excitement. Sulu elbowed him encouragingly. Maybe Sulu was right; maybe he had been overreacting. He hopped out of his chair to make way for Riley, and followed Commander Spock and Mr. Scott into the turbolift, trying to walk with casual confidence. But he felt the eyes of the bridge crew on his back. _That's right, Little Boy Chekov is on the landing party. Deal with it, guys._

Pavel dematerialized from the transporter room of the Enterprise, and rematerialized on the dusty, dimly lit transporter pad of Rho Indus Alpha, shoulders back, the case of diagnostic equipment safe on the dias between himself and Crewman Angelo.

Commander Spock stepped down from the pad without ceremony, adjusting his tricorder. "According to the facility blue prints, the computer command centre is this way."

"Aye, that'll be a place to start, then. Chekov, take the kit and go with Commander Spock. Angelo, you're with me. We should check out the main pumping station, make sure there aren't any gremlins mucking about in the hardware."

"Agreed. Maintain open comms, check in in one hour's time," Spock responded. He signalled to Pavel. "Mr. Chekov."

Pavel tried not to let his surprise show. He was going to have to assist Commander Spock? He couldn't figure out if he was being rewarded, or punished. _No pressure, Pavel. _He quickly lifted the diagnostic kit, and nearly strained his shoulder. Angelo had made it look light as feather when he carried it into the transporter room. He grunted with effort.

"You okay with that, Ensign?" Angelo said, smirking.

Chekov squared his shoulders, letting the kit hang at his side. "I got it," he said, trying not to sound strained.

"This way, Mr. Chekov," Spock instructed, setting a brisk pace out of the transporter room. Pavel grit his teeth and followed, successfully hauling the kit down from the dias without dropping it or falling over.

"Right behind you, sir!" Beads of perspiration were forming on Pavel's forehead as he tried to keep up with Spock's pace. The Vulcan commander turned corners, his eyes glued to his tricorder as if he were a robot. Pavel had never worked alone with the taciturn commander before, and wracked his brain for something impressive to say, to prove his worth.

The Federation had lost one of its founding planets not that long ago. It was still hard for Pavel to conceive of a galaxy without Vulcan as its serene, mysterious core. His memory of that day was vivid, yet surreal. He'd been the one to decipher what the instability in Vulcan's core meant. And though he'd been absorbed in the strange physics before him, there was no way he would ever forget the look on Spock's face when the last survivors of Vulcan materialized on the pad, minus one.

None of it was his fault, Pavel knew that. In fact, he'd been commended for his deft handling of the transporter controls. He'd saved many lives that day, but it was the thought of the one he hadn't saved that kept him up some nights. He couldn't help wondering if, deep down—right or wrong—Spock still associated him with his staggering personal losses of that day. Pavel tried to imagine himself in Spock's position, but for all his supposed brilliance, the scale of it, _losing one's planet_, was just too much to grasp. Losing one's mother, on the other hand... Even if Spock didn't blame him, it was hard for Pavel not to blame himself, just a little.

Lost in his musings, he nearly walked into Spock, who had suddenly stopped. "Sir?" Pavel asked.

"I'm detecting movement," Spock said intently. He had his tricorder out, scanning the wall with care.

Pavel set the diagnostic kit on the floor and pulled out his own tricorder. Spock was right. Several figures, too large to be vermin, and too numerous and nearby to be Engineer Scott and Angelo. They didn't bounce back hot, like typical lifeforms. "Machinery, maybe?" he suggested, although the movement patterns didn't look quite right for automation.

"I cannot be certain. We shall proceed with caution, Ensign."

Pavel nodded. He picked up the kit and followed Spock, who was moving much more slowly, following his tricorder readings. They came to a sealed door, with MAIN COMP CONTROL stencilled across in faded red. There were dark streaks across it that glistened wetly in the low, auxillary lighting of the corridor.

Pavel stayed back and watched Spock touch one of the streaks, then rub his fingers together. "What is it?"

Spock didn't acknowledge him immediately. Instead, he touched one of his freshly soiled fingertips to his tongue, and raised an eyebrow. "It would appear to be some kind of - "

The door slid open. Pavel saw several humanoid shapes moving around inside the room. They appeared to be naked, and their skin was lumpy and uneven, with a moist sheen to it. The humanoids turned to look out at them. Pavel's jaw dropped. They had no faces, but each one did bear a strikingly familiar symbol etched into its chest.

" -mud," Spock finished.

"Mr. Spock, that symbol - !"

"Yes."

"It looks like - !"

"I recognize it, Ensign."

Pavel stared unblinkingly at the creatures, who seemed equally startled. "What do we do?"

Spock gestured for Pavel to stay back, and pulled out his communicator. He flipped it open. "Spock to - "

"Aaaaiiiiieeee!"

Pavel turned, trying to locate the source of the howl. "Was that - ?"

"Mr. Scott! Engineer, respond! Mr. Angelo!" There was urgency in Spock's tone, and no response through his communicator.

Then, the humanoid beings charged.

Pavel dropped the diagnostic kit as he and Spock were pushed back through the corridor. The mud beings came out swinging. Pavel watched Spock duck a slow punch from one of them and come around, attempting a neck pinch. The mud creature shrugged, and Spock's hand passed through its neck, coming out covered in mud.

The creature turned to face Spock, who was shaking his muddy hand as if it were quite heavy, and did a curious, short hop. The creature transformed into a giant mud ball and crashed into Spock, dropping him to the floor like a stone.

"Commander!" Pavel's jaw dropped. Starfleet officers didn't come much stronger than Spock. Two more mud creatures emerged from the room, passing Spock by, heading straight for Pavel.

Pavel assumed a fighting stance. The symbol on the creature's chest matched the one he'd seen atop the scepter of the crazy alien woman, Rita. As he prepared to meet the oncoming mud creatures, he grew aware of his power morpher, clipped fast to his belt. In the calm, uneventful weeks since Iota Draconis, he'd nearly forgotten about it. But should he try to activate it? He glanced questioningly towards Spock, but the commander was wallowing in the thick mud puddle, looking dazed.

The first mud creature came at Pavel, fists flying. The corridor was narrow, but Pavel was slight and wiry and sidestepped. He clasped his fists together and brought them down hard between where the creature's shoulder blades should have been. The creature's skin was cold, and dense, like punching a bag of wet concrete. The mud creature swiveled with surprising speed and delivered a rapid punch to Pavel's diaphragm.

Winded, Pavel staggered backwards, his vision gone red, then black. Everything spun. For an eternal moment, Pavel couldn't breathe, let alone move. Then cold, clammy hands seized him. The pressure in his chest finally receded, and just before Pavel was able to start struggling free, the cold hands pulled away. His vision returned and he saw that Spock was back on his feet, plastered with mud, grappling with one of the mud creatures. The puddled creature was beginning to reform on the floor, and two more were circling Spock, as if waiting for their turn to try the Vulcan.

Spock's face was determined, but the mud creature was getting the best of him, forcing him back towards one of the others. It raised its arms, its hands melting together and reforming into a kind of club. Spock's head would be crushed!

Pavel got to his feet, rubbed his sore ribs, took a deep breath, and charged. At the last opportunity, he remembered his training and launched into a flying kick. His foot landed square on Rita's emblem on the creature's chest. The creature's entire body rippled and started to melt. "Ha ha!" Pavel exclaimed.

But then the being stabilized, reached out towards Pavel, and shot jets of mud at him. Pavel hit the deck, and the mud pummeled the wall behind him. He scrambled forward, not thinking very clearly, and grabbed the creature's legs. As soon as he did it, he realized he wasn't quite sure what he was going to do. The creature kicked, violently. Pavel tried to hold on, but ended up taking a glancing blow to his chin. He tumbled away, head ringing, seeing stars.

Dimly, he heard Spock yelling: "Enterprise! Two to beam up!" Hands grabbed the back of Pavel's uniform shirt. Pavel started trying to twist free, then saw that it was Spock holding him, dragging him down the corridor, away from the mud beings. Spock let go, allowing Pavel to get on his feet, then thrust an arm in front of him, half-blocking Pavel from the advancing mud creatures. "Transport now!" Spock ordered.

Pavel held his breath. The creatures were almost on top of them, their hands rippling, shaping into new implements of danger, when his vision grew hazy again, this time in the vaporous energy wash of the transporter beam.

"What happened down there? Report!" Captain Kirk barked as soon as Pavel and Spock had reformed on the pad. Lieutenant Uhura and Dr. McCoy entered the transporter room right behind him.

"We were attacked. Did you hear from Engineer Scott or Crewman Angelo?" Spock asked, his voice ridiculously matter-of-fact for a man who was nearly breathless, and whose uniform and hair were plastered with muck.

"He was cut off. We're trying to find him with sensors, but so far it's like he and Angelo just vanished. Who attacked you?" Kirk demanded. Spock stepped off the pad to confer with the captain.

McCoy approached Pavel, his medical tricorder in hand, whirring. "You okay, kid?"

Pavel realized he'd been standing hunched over, absently massaging his chin. He dropped his hand and straightened. "Yes, sir," he said, but even to him, his voice sounded tight. He cleared his throat. "Maybe a little banged up," he conceded, forcing a cavalier grin.

"Rita?" Pavel heard Kirk say.

"The symbol on the creatures' chest precisely matched that of her scepter," Spock explained. Pavel saw Spock meet his gaze and acknowledge him with a bob of the head. "Ensign Chekov can confirm that observation."

The captain looked at Pavel, and Pavel nodded agreement. "It was the same symbol, sir. I'm sure of it." Pavel realized something else. "And the way they fought..." he trailed off, realizing he was speaking out of turn.

"What about it, Chekov?" Kirk asked, his expression serious.

Pavel really needed to stop feeling so surprised every time a senior officer acknowledged him, but he couldn't help it, yet. He'd clearly gotten the worse end of the fight down there. "They way they fought, sir. It was a lot like how the monster on Iota Draconis acted. Sort of like an animal, but with...strange powers. Same kind of punches, too," he added with a wince. Holding his erect posture was causing a definite twinge in his chest. He hadn't felt this badly bruised since the last holiday he'd spent at home, when his cousins had ambushed him, eager to test his Starfleet combat training. (He hadn't done so well then, either.) "It has to be Rita, sir."

"That woman, with our largest refinery under her control, and my chief engineer as her prisoner," Kirk mused unhappily.

"A dangerous combination, I agree," Spock added. "Particularly for Mr. Scott and Crewman Angelo."

Pavel picked up on the undercurrent between Spock and Kirk and fingered his power morpher.

"What is that thing, anyway?" Dr. McCoy asked.

Pavel had forgotten all about the doctor, and now was at a loss for words. Zordon had told them not to reveal their identities.

"Bones, is Chekov okay?" Kirk asked.

McCoy turned towards the captain, and Pavel breathed a sigh of relief. "Some bruising, nothing serious."

"Good. You're dismissed, and you have the con. Uhura, call up to the bridge, get Sulu down here, and tell them to keep trying to contact Scotty and Angelo. The rest of us are beaming down to find them."

Out of the corner of his eye, Pavel saw Uhura walk over to the wall unit and make the call.

"Now, wait just one damn minute, Captain-" McCoy began.

"I know, but with us on the surface, that leaves you as the senior officer aboard ship."

"Jim, I'm a doctor, not-"

Kirk silenced him with a heavy pat on the shoulder, and grinned widely. "Oh come on, Bones. Nobody _made_ you take advanced command training. Admit it, you love ordering people around."

McCoy glared at Kirk, but made no direct response. However, as he left the room, Pavel thought he heard the good doctor mutter something about an "ex-wife!" before the doors closed behind him. Moments later, Sulu entered, and from the grim set of his face, it was obvious to Pavel that Uhura had filled him in on the situation.

Kirk, meanwhile, reached into a back pocket and pulled out his power morpher. Pavel felt a surge of excitement. Kirk looked up to address the assembled officers. "I know we're a long way from Iota Draconis, but we made a promise to Zordon. At the same time, we know what Rita is capable of. Anyone have second thoughts?"

"Scotty and Angelo need our help, sir," Sulu said. Uhura nodded agreement, and Pavel unhooked his morpher, standing tall. His heart pounded.

Kirk nodded. "All right. Spock, set the coordinates. Let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

Rita sat in her command center and studied the gemological specimens of Rho Indus Alpha with awe. Tritanium. Benamite. Cormaline. Nitrium. Topaline. The names were foreign, but the compounds were no strangers to Rita, and based on the star maps, they were ridiculously common in this galaxy. The Federation's refinery technology was as bulky as any she could remember from her native land, but its functioning was decidedly primitive by comparison.

And yet, here were gemstones as big as her fist being packed away uselessly in boxes, or glued to walls for tacky display purposes while tons and tons more was crushed up, melted down and shipped out to be made into ship hulls and machine lubricants. She was surprised they didn't make screws and nails out of gold, for all they abused their abundance!

Little wonder that this region of the cosmos was so dense with civilization, and so poor in magic. What need had these people for conjuring and alchemy when all they had to do was bend over and pick up anything they needed?

Rita had to admit to herself that she'd been a slightly neglectful supreme being; how many galaxies like this one had she ignored as mere dustballs? With a weakened scepter, she couldn't afford to let professional pride get in the way of practicality. Using Rangers made sense in these lands of plenty. They'd be able to draw power directly from the abundant mineral matrices around them as well as from their patron wizard. Zordon was still a resourceful old powermonger. Well, if he didn't already regret teaching Rita everything he knew, he soon would.

Rita selected the best stones, and had one of her mud beings polish them, and fashion silver settings and links for them. She found a storeroom full of safety equipment and utility jumpsuits. With her new scepter crystal properly attenuated, she turned one of the baggy jumpsuits into a sleek orange leotard to replace her tattered uniform and cape. She gave it a protective, glittery sheen from crushed diamonds (which would also reflect energy beams like the kind the Yellow Ranger had surprised her with the last time) and then strung the stones around her waist as a belt.

"Aaaaaiiiieeee!"

Rita snapped her fingers and turned from her mirror. She'd nearly forgotten about her prisoners. What powerful lungs they had! She used her scepter to teleport herself a short distance to the blockhouse. She looked down over the railing. The two humans, their arms and chests tied up in hanging cables, were slowly being lowered in the remaining mud. They were both nearly waist-deep in it, and the stuff writhed and bubbled around them from latent shaping energy. She smiled and descended the stairs with regal bearing.

"So, what do you think of my new minions?" she asked the humans. Each vat was being supervised by two of her mud creatures. They were more finely developed now, less bulky and hardly dripping at all, and the symbols on their chests were quite distinct. They remained faceless, with tiny mouth slits and mere depressions for eyes.

"Well, they could do with some manners. I've been asking them to please let us go for ages, now, and they've been no help at all," said the one with the brogue, who claimed to be a chief.

"Funny man," Rita observed. "I'd like to hear you try to laugh with a throat full of mud. My pretty putties aren't burdened with personalities and free will. They do exactly as commanded. What more could you ask for? You'd find them to be a far superior workforce than the likes of him," she added, poking the second human with the butt end of her scepter. He whimpered.

The chief's expression hardened. "Leave 'im alone, you witch! I'd sooner drown in this muck than help you."

Rita restrained the urge to drown him right there. "You should reconsider, red man. Isn't a facility like this infinitely more deserving of your skills than a tiny metal bubble drifting through space? You'd have infinite resources at your disposal, and under my guidance, no shortage of engineering challenges. With our powers combined, we could create technologies greater than anything even you have dreamed of."

"The last time I met you, you tried to kill me and crash me ship," the chief said.

Rita's patience was running out. As much as she could make use of the man's mechanical expertise, Rita wasn't prepared to fight long for it. She might have enough power to overcome the chief's force of will initially, but if he couldn't be made cooperative, it would tax her resources badly if she had to sustain the control for any length of time.

She leaned on the edge of the vat, showing off her plunging neckline, and tried to appear friendly. "So we didn't start off on the best of terms, I'll admit. But, one specialist to another, you've impressed me, red man." She swiveled her scepter idly, making sure he could see its faintly glowing crystal. "And you'd be ensuring the safety of your ship and crewmates if you worked for me. If you refuse my offer, I'll make sure you live just long enough to watch your ship burn and crash. And without you on board to work your magic, that won't take long."

Rita watched the chief's reaction carefully, saw some of his bravado and bluster fade. Saw fear and uncertainty take their place.

"Even if—_if—_I agreed, which I'm not saying I am, you can bet your shiny, tight breeches that as soon as the _Enterprise _got wind of it they'd be tryin' tae blow this facility, myself, Angelo and you, to smithereens," he said.

The other prisoner whimpered again.

"Steady, lad," the chief added. He stared at her steadily. Afraid or not, this man was no coward. He would be extremely difficult to control. His comrade, however, appeared to lack such resolve.

Rita pondered the situation for a moment. She watched tendrils of drilling mud try to inch up the chief's torso, like grasping fingers. Her putties lowered the men another fraction into the vats, and the chief's companion yelped in fear.

She stepped back from the vat and narrowed her eyes at the chief. "Suppose your ship didn't find out?" She turned to the two putties guarding the other man. "Immerse him!"

"No! No, please!" the man cried. Each putty grasped a cable supporting one of the man's arms, and together they began to pull, and the hungry mud began to agitate wildly, sucking the terrified human down into the semi-solid depths. He uttered a short scream, and was swallowed completely.

"Angelo! No!" the chief exclaimed. "Let him go, you - !"

Rita forcibly silenced him with the charged point of her scepter. The chief stiffened unnaturally in his bonds. "Calm down, red man. The best part is yet to come. Watch."

The surface of the vat calmed and filled in until the surface was smooth as glass. Then, it began to ripple, to pucker and surge until a large blob of it spilled over the side and puddled on the floor. The puddle formed into a ball and began to contort. It stretched upward and writhed itself into a humanoid form. But then its torso developed bright red spots. Its legs became black, and its face grew a nose and other features. When it finally stopped contorting, the mud ball looked exactly like Angelo, albeit it a water-soaked one.

A strangled gasp gurgled out of the vat, and the real Angelo reappeared, coated in mud but still alive, as the level of the mud was now below his head. At the same time, the mud Angelo convulsed and gasped, too. Rita aimed her scepter at the mud duplicate to speed up the pyschological imprinting and then sever the mental link. The mud duplicate blinked, and lost its glazed expression. It snapped to attention. "Ma'am!" it said, "Crewman Angelo reporting for duty, ma'am!"

Rita laughed, giddy with her own success. It worked even better than she'd hoped. "At ease, Crewman Angelo. Putties, give the crewman his personal items."

One of the putties came forward and held out a communicator and tricorder. The mud Angelo took them back and clipped them to his utility belt. Suddenly, his communicator chirped.

"Well! You'd better answer it, Crewman Angelo."

The real Angelo began to struggle and make noise. Rita paralyzed him with her scepter, too.

Mud Angelo took his communicator back out and flipped it open. "Angelo here," it said.

"_This is _Enterprise_. You and Mr. Scott are overdue. Report on your situation._"

Mud Angelo looked from Rita to the chief, then back at Rita. Rita tipped her scepter at him. "Sorry about that, _Enterprise_. The chief and I ran into some trouble, but we took care of it. It took us a while to find a spot where we could get good signal reception, though."

"_A landing party has beamed down to locate you, but interference is masking your signal. What is your current position?_"

Rita grinned. Mud Angelo answered, "We're trapped under a fallen harvester approximately twenty meters southwest of the landing pad. We're all right, but Mr. Scott is pinned and we're not getting any work done, that's for sure."

"_Hang in there, Angelo. We'll have help there as soon as possible. Keep us informed of your status. _Enterprise _out._"

Mud Angelo put his communicator away and looked at Rita. Rita released the chief and the real Angelo from their paralyses.

"What are ye playing at? There's naught out there at that location. All you've done is bought yerself a wee bit more time," the chief scoffed.

"That's where you're wrong, my brave red man! You'll be there, waiting to greet your comrades with open arms...and a whole lot of my mud! Putties!"

The two putties guarding the chief began to quickly lower him into the mud. "No! The cap'n will stop ye! The cap-!"

"Ahhh, hahahaha!" Rita laughed, as the chief was submerged. This was going really well. _Really_ well.

* * *

Pavel materialized with the others at the edge of a broad, empty launch platform, his hand still resting on his power morpher. He watched Captain Kirk, waiting for the cue to use it. This was where he would prove himself, he knew it! He'd been prepared to face an army of mud creatures. Instead, the platform was empty, and there wasn't even the ambient noise of working machinery to break the eerie silence.

Kirk took out his communicator instead, and flipped it open. "Kirk to _Enterprise._"

"Enterprise _here, Captain. We've just received communication from Angelo and Scotty. We have their position._"

The part of Pavel that had been unconsciously winding up for a fight was sorry to hear that. Kirk looked suprised. "Can you beam them up?" Kirk asked.

"_We can't get a lock on them, sir, but Angelo gave us coordinates._" Kirk looked at Spock. Spock raised an eyebrow (Pavel wondered if the commander had any other facial expression). "_Any trouble down there so far?_" the comm officer aboard ship asked.

"None yet. Transmit coordinates to Spock's tricorder and keep us informed. Kirk out."

"Captain?" Sulu asked.

"Remember what Zordon said. We have to let Rita bring the fight to us," Kirk answered.

"But I didn't pick up signs of any special shielding. If the ship can get a comm signal from them, they ought to be able to get a transporter lock," Uhura remarked.

"If Rita's here, then all bets are off, Uhura."

"A trap, Captain?" Spock asked.

Kirk regarded him silently for a moment. "Maybe." He raised his voice to address the group. "For now, assume this to be hostile territory. Keep open comms, and set phasers on stun."

Pavel reached towards his belt, only to remember that he hadn't been given a phaser. Instead, he had a pair of field glasses. _Great. _He was still missing his final marksmanship credential, which he wasn't allowed to take until he was eighteen. So he sidled up next to Sulu, who did have a phaser.

"Coordinates received, Captain," Spock announced, looking down at his tricorder.

"All right, then, lead on. Uhura, try to raise Scotty and Angelo. If we're walking into a trap, let's not make it too easy."

They skirted the landing platform, following the beeping of Spock's tricorder. When they were on the other side, Uhura received a response to her call.

"_Uhura! There's a voice for sore ears!_" It was Scotty.

"We're getting close to you," Uhura answered. "Can you make some kind of signal? There's a lot of machinery in the way."

"_Aye, come round the blockhouse. There's a wrecked harvester beastie behind it._"

Pavel looked closely at the maze of pipes and metal scaffolding they faced. Finally, he picked out a small, white cinderblock structure tucked away inside. "The blockhouse!" he exclaimed, pointing.

"Good eye, Chekov. You, Sulu and Uhura go around the left side, Spock and I will go around the right, we'll meet in back. Stay alert."

"Aye," Pavel said. The groups split. Pavel followed Uhura and Sulu around, over and under the structure, the little blockhouse growing bigger and bigger. Soon the captain and Mr. Spock were no longer visible, blocked by the dense snarl of cables and support struts.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Sulu commented as he helped Uhura wriggle through a particularly tight gap in the pipes. A soft, metallic pinging sound echoed around them.

"Me too, and I don't even get to have a phaser," Pavel commented, scanning the levels above their heads. He felt paranoid. He saw Sulu roll his eyes.

"Well, if Rita shows up, it won't matter. We've _all_ got power morphers," Uhura said, her tone one of mediation.

They rounded the blockhouse at a healthy distance. "Is that the harvester?" Sulu asked softly. The blockhouse was situated on a low permacrete platform that looked something like a clearing in the forest of industrialization. A huge, many-legged vehicle reposed lopsidedly behind the blockhouse. Two of its legs were broken at the middle joint, and a weak trail of steam leaked from the top of its central pillar.

"There they are!" Uhura pointed to two spots of red visible in the debris of the broken legs. She opened her communicator.

"And there's the captain and Mr. Spock," Pavel said, seeing the captain in his gold uniform, and Spock in his blue, huddle on the opposite side of the platform. The soft metal pinging sound continued around them.

"Uhura to Scotty, we see you."

"_Aye, here we are, all right._"

Pavel saw the captain give a hand signal, and Sulu and Uhura began to walk forward into the open. Following a gut instinct, Pavel pulled out his field glasses and scanned the harvester.

"C'mon, Chekov, that debris looks heavy. They'll need all of us," Sulu urged.

"Just a minute, just a minute." Pavel studied the harvester top to bottom. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, but he knew there was something. He leaned forward, supporting himself against a large pipe on the ground. He felt a vibration passing through it, and the pinging noise stopped. Curious, he pushed off the pipe. The pinging noise resumed. He followed the pipe with his eyes, and saw that it traveled a short distance in front of him before plunging sharply beneath the platform.

He raised his glasses again to study the harvester again. That's when he noticed that the platform was marked with several flat caps. They looked like the kind of caps used to provide access to large underground storage tanks. There was a cap directly beneath the harvester. He peered closely at it, and saw that it was open, and that something was snaking out of the open cap, like a small hose. He panned up, without zooming out, and caught sight of several thin rivulets of a dark, thick liquid oozing out from between the rivets on the harvester's belly.

"Chekov, what are you waiting for?" Sulu called again. He and Uhura were halfway to the harvester already.

Pavel put his glasses away and got to his feet. "Wait! Mud!" he cried. He saw Spock turn to look at him. "Mr. Spock! The harvester, look! Mud!"

Before anyone could react, the harvester emitted a shriek of stressed metal. A hatch on its belly blew open, and out poured a dense torrent of mud balls. The balls thudded heavily onto the platform, and began to wriggle into humanoid shape. Pavel experienced a profound sense of deja-vu. The shapes solidified, and Pavel found himself and his crewmates facing off with dozens of mud beings. They looked a lot more refined than the first ones he'd encountered, and each one had Rita's symbol impressed very clearly into its chest. The torrent from the harvester's belly continued. The mud creatures assumed fighting stances.

"Scotty?" Pavel heard Uhura gasp. He looked past the army and his jaw dropped. Scotty and Angelo had freed themselves from the debris, and had begun to transform. Their bright red shirts became orange and brown, and they began to wriggle and writhe into mud creatures, too.

"Captain!" Uhura cried. Pavel turned and saw the Captain and Mr. Spock running to join them.

"I saw! Okay guys, this is what we were waiting for." Kirk pulled out his morpher. "It's morphin' time! Golden power!"

"Sapphire power!" Sulu announced.

"Ruby power!" Uhura cried.

Pavel held up his morpher next. "Jade power!"

"Obsidian power," Spock said.

Pavel felt a rush of tingling energy, similar to an old-style transporter beam. When it ended, he wore a power suit that clung to his skin, feeding and amplifying his strength and reflexes, and a helmet with an advanced HUD that was perfectly in-synch with his mind. It began feeding him data about his surroundings. His power morpher was the centerpiece on his belt, and he could feel his Jade Staff sheathed across his back. His Starfleet communicator and field glasses were, like his uniform, gone. He was transformed, from "little boy" Chekov the whiz kid Ensign, to Green Ranger, wearer of the Jade Power Coin, member of the ancient, mystical Power Rangers.

"All right, Rangers, let's clean up!" The voice was that of Captain Kirk, coming from inside the helmet of the Yellow Ranger.

Green Ranger settled quickly into a fighting stance. The mud creatuers charged. He pulled his staff out of its sheath, took a step forward and cracked an onrushing creature across its midsection. The staff crackled with green electricity, and broke the creature in half. Chunks of baked clay went flying. He switched hands and did the same to a second mud creature. All around him, he could sense his comrades engaged in battles of their own. He split a third mud creature in half from head to groin, then backflipped away from the crushing embrace of another creature. He landed, his feet on the shoulders of a different mud creature, just long enough to push off again, land behind it, and carve it diagonally from shoulder to waist.

As it fell away in pieces, a quick-flying mud foot caught him right in the helmet, knocking him to the ground. He landed in a mud slick. With his HUD interface to guide him, he rolled away before the creature could stomp on his neck. Propping himself up on one arm, he executed a swift kick of his own that caved in the side of the creature's thigh. It staggered, giving Green Ranger the time he needed to get up and drive his staff through the symbol on the creature's chest. His staff crackled with energy, and the mud creature instantly hardened to stone, then burst into shrapnel. His boots were mired in mud, so he couldn't turn away as quickly as he wanted, but the shards pattered against his suit harmlessly.

A quick glance around showed that the fight seemed to be going their way. Uhura, as the Red Ranger, was punching holes through a mud creature with her throwing stars, making it melt back into a puddle of goo. Sulu, the Blue Ranger, was pulling his Sapphire sword out of a liquefying mud torso. The Yellow Ranger, however, appeared to be having a bit of trouble; a mud creature had him by the neck and was lifting him off the ground (an experience the Green Ranger could completely sympathize with). But before he could run to help, Spock, the Black Ranger, attacked the mud creature with a judo chop that took its arm clean off, allowing the Yellow Ranger to drop to the ground, and together they finished dismembering it til it was an assemblage of small mud balls, sinking into the thick puddle spreading across the platform.

"Ha! That wasn't so hard," the Blue Ranger remarked, leaning on his mud-coated sword.

"Oh no, you guys, look!" the Red Ranger exclaimed, pointing to the thickest part of the puddle, near the harvestor's belly.

The mud was beginning to writhe again. It separated into balls, and reformed into more mud creatures before anyone could react. And mud balls were continuing to flow out of the harvestor's open hatch.

"We have to close that hatch!" the Blue Ranger exclaimed.

"No, it's not the hatch, its the pump!" the Black Ranger said. "We need to shut down the mud flow," he added, jump-kicking a newly formed mud creature out of his way.

A pair of heavy arms grabbed the Green Ranger from behind and began to squeeze. He tensed up, trying to force the arms apart. He kicked back savagely, his heels digging into the creature's knees.

"And where are the real Scotty and Angelo?" the Red Ranger wondered.

"Spock! Can you use your telepathic skills to find them like you did last time?" the Yellow Ranger asked, before tackling a mud creature to the platform and frying its head with his gun.

"I can try, but not while I am this distracted," the Black Ranger answered, pummeling a reforming mud creature back into a pile of goo.

The Green Ranger continued kicking the knee of the creature that held him. It squeezed him so tight it was difficult to breathe. Finally, he felt its shin go. The creature lurched forward, and its skin liquefied for a brief moment. It was enough for the Green Ranger to slip out of its embrace, turn and thwack off its head with his staff. He raced across the platform to join the Blue and Yellow Rangers, who were forming a protective line in front of the Black Ranger. He fell in step beside them, and began to twirl his staff rapidly, knocking back the reforming mud creatures as soon as they grew tall enough. Behind him, he sensed the Black Ranger take a knee, his hands on his helmet, sinking into deep concentration.

Further away, the Red Ranger dispatched the few mud creatures that had time to fully form.

"I don't think we can keep this up forever," the Blue Ranger confessed, wildly beating down the mud columns with the broad side of his sword. He battered one down into a puddle, then had to slash at the next one that had grown nearly full-size. With technique like that, Pavel thought, he was right.

The Captain, on the other hand, was holding his own, interchanging frying bolts of energy from his Golden Gun with kicks and even the odd headbutt or kick.

"Not like that, Sulu; like this," Pavel said,demontrating his fast, easy rhythm as he shared blows evenly amongst the mud pillars, keeping them all at roughly the same height: twirl, smack! Twirl, smack!

"How are you so fast?" Sulu remarked.

Pavel smiled to himself. "Russian arcade training. In school, I was Moscow's two-time Whack-A-Mole champion!" Pavel exclaimed.

Sulu turned towards him. "Whack-a-_what?_"

"What are they doing?" the Red Ranger asked.

The Green Ranger looked, and saw that the mud creatures pouring out of the harvester were no longer showing any interest in them. A few continued to battle and reform, but a long line of them were walking away from the Rangers, back towards the main platform. The Red Ranger hit a couple with her throwing stars, but the creatures simply reformed and continued their march.

"Where are they going?" the Green Ranger wondered.

"To...the orbital...cargo shuttle," the Black Ranger intoned, with obvious difficulty. "Infiltrate...Starfleet...take over...ships...!"

"Spock? Spock!" the Yellow Ranger demanded.

The Black Ranger dropped his hands and stood up. "Captain, I have located Misters Scott and Angelo. They are with Rita, and she has made her plans known to them. I believe they are underground, in the blockhouse."

"And Rita's plan?"

"According to Mr. Scott, she is intending to fill the cargo shuttles with this animate drilling mud. When it comes in contact with sentient living beings, it is able to take on their form and behavior, like the two we witnessed out here that appeared to be our crewmen. In this way, she hopes to infiltrate and replace Starfleet personnel with these 'putties,' allowing her to conquer the galaxy. At least, this is what Mr. Scott and Mr. Angelo believe."

"Spock, you never cease to amaze me."

"Putties?" the Blue Ranger repeated.

"Rita's term," the Black Ranger said.

"Cute," the Red Ranger said, wryly.

"Okay. Spock, you're with me, let's get our guys. Sulu, Chekov, Uhura; that drilling mud. Figure out how to shut it off, along with anything else Rita has running to make her plan work. Uhura, contact the ship, tell McCoy to watch out for any launches from the surface. Any cargo ships turn up in orbit, tell the _Enterprise _to fire on them. Stop them from leaving orbit. C'mon."

The Yellow and Black Rangers turned and sprinted away towards the blockhouse.

The Green Ranger turned back to his companions. He could tell Uhura was already using her HUD to call the _Enterprise _and relay the captain's orders. Sulu, back in form as Blue Ranger, was methodically chopping the few remaining putty-balls that tried to threaten them (Pavel noted with pride that Sulu seemed to have taken his beating advice to heart.) The rest of the creatures were marching away, in ever-growing numbers. Mud continued to belch forth out of the harvester.

"We can't just shut the door, the mud'll burst through it," he remarked. "I think there is a hose underneath, feeding it."

The Blue Ranger swung his sword around, smacking a half-formed putty with the flat of the blade. "That's an awful lot of putties between us and the harvester."

"An awful lot of putties that are _getting away!_" the Red Ranger yelled suddenly.

"Huh?" Pavel turned to look at her.

"Cargo ship!" she exclaimed, pointing angrily at the sky. Pavel looked up, and his HUD helpfully zoomed in on the small, metallic object that was slowly growing larger as it descended through the clouds. Gradually, its colors became discernible. It was one of the outpost's orbital cargo tanks, dropping down to collect a payload.

"You suppose there's any chance it's just coming for the deuterium we need?" the Blue Ranger quipped hollowly.

"Not likely," the Red Ranger answered. She held a hand up to the side of her helmet and lowered her head, listening. "And _Enterprise's _scans show it's not the only one. There are three more tanks making a beeline for that launch platform out there."

"Rita's calling up the troops," the Blue Ranger mused.

"Then what are we waiting for?" the Green Ranger exclaimed. He pulled out his staff again, and began twirling it rapidly, building up its charge. Then he ran headlong into the retreating horde of putties.

He launched himself into a kick, and threw his staff ahead of him. It contacted on one of the beings, and ricocheted in a dazzingly display of green energy arcs, sparks and clay chunks. His feet connected with another creature, and he drove it to the ground, flipping off it to land on a metal crossbeam above the putties. His staff had taken out several of them in a circle, and the surviving putties around them seemed agitated and confused.

Pavel held back a triumphant laugh. He hadn't known he could actually do something like that. He'd just been acting out of desperation. Who knew what else this suit, and his staff, were capable of?

He leapt down into the cleared spot and picked up his staff. He began twirling it again. Energy surged through the staff, through his arms and heart. The putties began to swarm, half coming to attack him, half trying to get away.

"Pavel! What are you doing? There are too many of them!" Sulu cried, his voice blasting through the helmet's speakers.

"Yes, but I can slow them down til we figure out how to turn off the mud." The Green Ranger threw his staff again, and even though a couple of the putties were smart enough to duck, it struck one on the shoulder and emitted another explosive energy discharge. Pavel recoiled from the flying clay bits, uttering a high-pitched whistle. "This staff really packs a punch!"

Another explosion, this one behind him, made the Green Ranger turn and see the Blue Ranger holding his sword, surrounded by his own circle of exploded putties.

"How'd you do that?" the Green Ranger asked.

"Like this!" the Blue Ranger answered. A suge of angry putties were closing in on him. He lifted his sword high above his head with both hands. The blade crackled with blue light. He stabbed the ground with it. A blue shockwave briefly encircled him and the closest ring of putties. The putties blew apart, and debris rolled past the Green Ranger's boot, bearing a light coating of blue powder.

"Whoa," the Green Ranger breathed, impressed.

"I'm glad you guys are having fun blowing things up, but it isn't solving our problem," the Red Ranger interjected. "We need to turn off this mud and keep that cargo ship from taking off with a load of putties in its hold."

That's when Pavel remembered the large pipe he'd leaned against with his field glasses, the one that had made the pinging noise. "There's a pipe! A big pipe at the edge of the platform, near where we came through!" Before he could say more, he realized more putties were closing in on him. He whirled his staff overhead, then leapt straight up, hurling his staff down into the surge of putties. He landed in a cloud of dust.

"I see the pipe, but it's shielded. The whole mud delivery network is. We'll have to shut it off at the main controls," the Red Ranger said.

The Green Ranger saw more of the putties turning around, coming to confront them. He threw his staff like a lance and fried them at a distance. Behind them, he saw dozens more emerging from the harvester's belly, coming towards him. It was _Escape from the Denebean Mine Field_ all over again. If he went with them to the main controls, there was nothing stopping the putties from swarming them, and escaping in the cargo shuttles, the first of which was about to land. He glanced at the harvester, thinking. There hadn't been as many coming out when they were closer. Now that there was more room, it looked like the rate of putty production had increased.

He had a sudden epiphany. _If I lure them back to the harvester, crowd it..._ "Then you two should go and take care of it. I'll stay here, keep the putties distracted," he announced. "I know what I'm doing."

"I'll help you," the Blue Ranger offered.

"No, wait, there's three of us, right?" the Red Ranger interjected, "I can find the main controls more easily by myself. Two of us might draw unnecessary attention. I have a blueprint here in my helmet display." The cargo shuttle filled the air with a mechanical roar, hovering overhead. "Sulu, do you think you could pilot that cargo shuttle?" the Red Ranger asked.

Sulu's face was inscrutable behind his faceplate, but after a moment's consideration, he punched his palm and nodded. "I don't even need to. If I can get inside, I can reprogram the nav console to send it back to its bay." He started moving toward the main platform. "Just keep the putties off me for a little while, Chekov!" He turned and started sprinting, clearing his path with his sword as he went.

"I'll turn off the mud as quick as I can. You sure you'll be okay here?" Red Ranger asked.

The Green Ranger's plan solidified in his mind. The new group of putties were almost on top of them. He nodded. "I have this."

"Okay. Good luck!" The Red Ranger leapt high, flipping heels over head, grabbing a crossbeam like a gymnast, and swinging herself onto a high gantry, out of the way of a lunging putty.

The Green Ranger cracked it with his staff, edging a step closer to the harvester. "All right, you bunch of dirty _podonoks, _let's see what you've got!" He hurled his staff back towards a group of putties that had started to follow the Blue Ranger. The staff fell short, but the leaping arcs of green energy singed them enough to get their attention. They turned.

Pavel looked behind him and saw the outpouring of mud creatures beginning to flank him. He was surrounded. For a split second, he doubted the wisdom of his decision. If this didn't work, he could end up in the middle of the galaxy's biggest mudpie. He remembered one of his grandmother's favorite sayings from before she died: _"How well you live makes a difference, not how long." _

He held out his hand, and his staff flew back into his grip. He turned to face the horde from the harvester and began twirling his staff. _Here I go._ "Kiyaaah!" he cried, launching himself into the putty ranks.


	4. Chapter 4

"Ahh, hahaha! Look at them run, the cowards!" Rita screeched gleefully as she watched the security feed. "Two more little Power Rangers have run away, and only one little Power Ranger is left!" She grinned at the chief. "Still think you're going to escape, little red man?"

"I dinnae know what they're up to, but I guarantee those Rangers won't let you win, ye mad witch woman!"

Rita used her scepter to send a convulsive shock through both her prisoners, and watched with satisfaction as they flopped and flailed. Her patience for the chief's insults was wearing exceptionally thin. She had to restrain herself from electrocuting him to death. She turned back to her surveillance globe, a magicked glass orb that tied in directly to the refinery's security feeds. She waved her scepter, switching between different camera views. _What's taking those cargo shuttles so long?_ she wondered. The first shuttle was hovering over the main platform, which was thronged with an army of waiting putties. _Why isn't it landing?_ And shouldn't her army of putties be a bit bigger than that?

Rita swiped her scepter again, zooming the camera view out and away from the platform, back towards the harvester. The area behind the blockhouse was swarming with putties, but they weren't moving towards the main platform in ordered ranks like she'd ordered. Instead, from above it appeared as though they were rioting. They were a chaotic, shifting blend of movement, and then, from the midst of them, she saw several flashes of green light. She focused the camera angle on the flashes.

"The Ranger is still alive?" she exclaimed in confusion. He should have been overwhelmed as soon as his friends left. And he was; he stood right next to the harvester, a single spot of color in a solid pack of drab mud, cutting them down regularly, but not in any great number. She watched him scramble up the harvester, dangling from its tall spout. The crush of putties grew tighter around the base, trying to get to him and blocking the open panel on the harvester's belly. Mud coursed through the rivets and gaps, but it splattered uselessly on the platform, lacking space to form the large mud balls necessary to grow into putties.

"Oh, I don't believe this!" she snapped.

"Problems?" the chief asked. His voice was light and mocking.

In a burst of rage, she electrocuted him again. "Idiot putties! Forget the Ranger!" she implored, swinging her scepter back to the globe. "Get to the shuttle!"

_KKRR-ZZZAP!_

Rita's scepter vanished, leaving her empty hand stinging. She turned. The Yellow Ranger stood on the gantry above her, his gun levelled at her. She saw his grip tighten, and dove for cover between two mud vats.

_KKRR-ZZOCK!_

the Ranger's second shot hit the floor behind where she'd been standing. She quickly gathered herself, crouching behind the vat. She glanced both ways, and saw the end of her scepter lying on the floor a short distance beyond her globe. Stupid, weak crystal!

She shook her stinging hand and opened and closed her fist. No damage, just winged. She thought quickly. "Take another shot, Yellow Ranger! I dare you!" she shrieked.

"Scotty, you all right?" the Yellow Ranger called.

"Aye, just taking a wee mudbath."

"Angelo?"

"I—I'm okay. How—?"

"Not now. Rita?" the Yellow Ranger said, "Come out. Your putties aren't leaving this planet, and if you try anything—_anything—_you won't either. I guarantee it."

Rita drew a deep breath, and let loose with the wildest laugh she could muster. Her voice echoed around the tiled blockhouse. She stared at her scepter, calculating. It had slid partway under a control panel. She figured that the Yellow Ranger must not be able to see it, or else he would have shot it again. She went back through her memories, certain she'd once learned a way to use her magic without a focusing crystal. But how had she done it? "I don't fear you, Yellow Ranger, for I know your weakness!"

"Oh, really? How'd you find that out?" the Yellow Ranger asked. There was something in his voice that immediately told Rita that he was stalling for time. _Why? More Rangers on the way?_

"Easily. I know your master, Zordon. Far, far better than you do, I'd wager." Rita scanned the blockhouse with every trained sense she had.

"So?"

For a moment, Rita thought she sensed someone else in here in addition to her two prisoners and the Yellow Ranger. But the moment she tried to focus on it, it vanished like a scuttling insect. Had it been real, or was it just her own paranoia? "So," she answered, "I was once his slave, too. Did he tell you that?" _Need my scepter, _she thought intensely, searching her mind deeply.

_She cowed on the floor of the cave, nerves on fire as the loops found her flesh over and over again. She stared up at her alcove, at the big, red crystal just visible at the edge, and grit her teeth against the pain. If only she had it with her now! _Then _she'd show him. She'd stop him, make him pay for every welt raising on her arms and neck._

"We're not his slaves, Rita. We're here by choice, to stop you and protect the Federation."

Rita laughed again, but it was hard. The memories kept coming. Her anger with Zordon grew, her focus on retrieving her scepter suffered. She'd used her magic without it only once before, out of desperation...on that last day when she had nearly defeated him, when he'd been so weakened that his hold over her had finally broken, and she'd found reserves of ability she had never known she possessed, and in her rage, hadn't been able to properly control. He had been hobbling her for years. _Damn Zordon! _

She closed her fist again, tight with fury, and her scepter flew across the floor, pulled by her will. "Aahh—_hhgkh_!" She felt a strange _click _inside her head, and every joint locked up, choking her cry of victory. She blacked out.

"—unusual nerve configuration, Captain. She won't be unconscious long."

"Then tie her up good."

Consciousness returned to Rita in the form of a massive headache and the realization that her arms were tightly pinned to her sides. She opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, and the Black Ranger was binding her ankles together with a braid of electrical wiring. _These creatures really are quite practical, aren't they?_ she marveled.

Gradually, her extrasensory perception returned and she could sense the Black Ranger's presence, identical to the fleeting sensation she'd detected before. No ordinary telepath, this one. She had seen inside his mind, once. She knew he could send and receive, but she hadn't realized he could mask, as well. No doubt Zordon's power coin was responsible for _that _added little talent.

Rita kept her muscles slack and feigned unconsciousness, waiting for an opportunity to free herself. And she _would _free herself. She had remembered how to Call without her scepter. With a little practice, she would be able to do _anything._

She lay still, hearing the loud squelching noise that was made by her former prisoners being pulled out of their heavy mud traps. The Black Ranger pulled tightly on the cords around her ankles. Could he sense she was awake? Either way, he didn't seem the type to take any chances.

"Yellow Ranger to Red Ranger, status report."

Rita could hear the response through the Black Ranger's HUD. It was a a soft murmur through the helmet, but she could just make it out: "_Red Ranger here. I found the flow controls, sir. The system won't let me shut it down, something about pressure overrides, but I did figure out how to reduce the flow rate, I think_."

"Where are Blue and Green?" Yellow asked.

"_Blue just checked in. He's successfully commandeered the cargo shuttle. And the last I heard of Green..._"

"What?"

"..._he was trying to hold off the putties_, _sir._"

"Alone?" The Yellow Ranger sounded a bit anxious at that.

"_It was his idea, sir._"

"Okay. We have Scotty, Angelo and Rita, so why don't you head back here. Out. Yellow Ranger to Green, come in Green Ranger."

There was a moment of silence.

"Black?" Yellow prompted.

"One moment," Black answered. He relaxed his crouch and stilled, and Rita sensed his concentration shift away from her. Crucially, however, he kept his hands on Rita's bound ankles. Just the mistake she'd been hoping for! She forced herself not give in to her rush of excitement. While the Black Ranger's conscious mind was roaming away in search of the Green Ranger, his defenses were all but down, and it was only too easy for Rita to trick his subconscious mind into continuing to direct his hands to manipulate the wires binding her ankles..._but_ _in reverse_.

"He is alive. He is—"

The door at the top of the stairs burst open, and a torrent of mud gushed in, drowing out the Black Ranger's exclamation and clattering down the metal stairs. The Green Ranger came with it, sliding atop the wave of muck. The Black Ranger grabbed Rita around the waist with one arm and leapt off the lower gantry to the floor just before the wash of drilling mud would have engulfed them.

Rita could sense that the Black Ranger was slightly disoriented by the interruption, and his defenses vanished. With the tendrils of control she had in his mind, she caused him to land near where her scepter lay. Then, his subconscious still linked to her will, he let her go, reached down, picked the scepter up, and, still staring at the mud flow, he handed it to her.

Rita almost couldn't believe her luck. It was all coming back to her now, with the ease of a fish learning to swim. As the Rangers and the two crewmen rushed to avoid the avalanche of drilling mud, Rita ducked behind the central pillar, powered up her scepter and focused, her belt of power stones secure about her waist. She wanted to gloat, to sense their dismay and embarrassment, but there was no time. She grinned as a wave of tingly energy engulfed her body, transforming her into a beam of energy. It would carry her across the stars to a new world.

She was prepared this time. She would conquer Zordon with his own methods. Skill to skill, Ranger to Ranger. And then, she would look him in the eye and make him know what he'd done to her. But before she killed him—_just_ before—she would hear him beg for mercy, and mighty Zordon would be _afraid_.

* * *

The Green Ranger grabbed onto a railing, keeping himself from being swept off the landing and driven to the floor by the pounding mud. The flow ebbed to a steady cacophany of splatting and dripping.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" he exclaimed from where he dangled. The Yellow and Black Rangers, along with Mr. Scott and Crewman Angelo, were staring up at him with various expressions of surprise. "I got them all clogging up the harvester, and it just kind of exploded! I was trying to get away, and..."

The Yellow Ranger held up a hand. "That'll do, Greenie. Get down from there, help Mr. S-Black. The Black Ranger. With Rita." Pavel was surprised to hear such a flub from the Captain, but after he dropped down from the railing—landing with a _plop_ in several inches of mud—he saw why it must have happened.

Spock, fully garbed as the Black Ranger, stood alone. His head darted quickly from side to side, scanning, but it was immediately obvious to Chekov that Rita was not in the blockhouse. Spock circled the central pillar and even paused to check inside a couple of the vats.

After allowing this demonstration to go on for a moment, the captain asked, "Where's Rita?"

The Black Ranger stopped looking, straightened, putting his hands behind his back in a very Spock-ish gesture, and looked at the Yellow Ranger. "She is not here."

"Well, where'd she go?" Yellow demanded.

"Excuse me," Scotty cut in softly.

The Green Ranger saw that Scotty and Angelo were standing near the vats, drenched in mud and looking rather baffled, but otherwise apparently unhurt.

"Oh, right. _Enterprise, _this is the Yellow Ranger. Your two captured crewmen are ready to beam up."

Pavel was a bit confused. He could only assume that what he was hearing through his helmet—that is, the normal speaking voices of the captain, first officer, Sulu and Uhura—was not what Scotty and the ship were hearing whenever one of the Rangers spoke aloud, otherwise their identities would have been obvious by now despite the Yellow Ranger's deliberate evasiveness. _Our helmet speakers must be distorting our voices._ _Zordon's serious about us keeping our identities secret,_ he mused.

"_Yellow Ranger, this is _Enterprise._ We receive you._"

Moments after the reply came in, Scotty and Angelo faded out in a swirly transporter beam. As soon as they were gone, the Yellow Ranger held up his power morpher. Golden light enveloped his body, and faded away. Where the Yellow Ranger had stood, now stood Captain Kirk, in his gold command uniform, communicator in hand. "_Enterprise, _this is the captain. Do you have Scotty and Angelo?"

"_Yes, Captain, they just came in, and we were just about to call you. Is your party all right?_"

Following his lead, Pavel de-morphed. Spock did likewise, and seconds later, Sulu and Uhura came through the open blockhouse door, their regular uniform boots squishing in the heavy mud.

"Intact and accounted for. We had a little trouble with an army of prehensile clay soldiers, but everything is back under control."

"_Those Power Ranger people showed up again, Captain. Did you see them?_"

Pavel watched Kirk's gaze flick around the room. "Uh, just a glimpse as they were beaming out. Any trace of Rita?"

"_Unfortunately, no. We detected a brief power surge near your location a few minutes ago, but it was over too fast to glean much information from._"

Kirk mouthed a silent curse. Spock stared at the floor, looking almost contrite. "All right. Good enough. Let's get some techs down here to straighten up. We've got deuterium to deliver. Prepare to beam us up." Kirk snapped his comm shut.

"So she got away, again," Sulu commented sourly.

"Looks like. But her control over the refinery is broken, right?" Kirk asked him.

Sulu nodded smartly. "The cargo shuttles are heading to the refilling station according to their original programming. The first one will be in orbit soon."

"And Mr. Chekov, you sure the putties are done?"

"Wery, _wery _sure, Captain," Pavel answered. In the silence of their victory, he realized his ears were ringing slightly from the harvester explosion, and he felt grimy and aching all over.

"Without Rita, it looks like they couldn't have reformed anyway. But it's a swamp out there," Uhura added with a frown and a thumb over her shoulder.

Kirk smirked and nodded. "Good job, Mr. Chekov. Remind me never to get you cornered in a sparring session! Good work, all of you."

Pavel grinned proudly.

"I will have to analyze Rita's beaming signature when we return to the ship," Spock said, breaking his stony silence.

"We'll get to that, Spock. For now, let's call it a job done." Kirk pulled out his comm again.

Pavel sensed Sulu move alongside him for beaming. Sulu elbowed him gently. "Whack-A-Mole, huh? You're gonna have to show me that."

Pavel turned to him, still smiling. "Sure thing. But _Denebean Minefield _comes first_. _I think I know how to beat the space slug."

Sulu shook his head, but he was smirking.

"Kirk to _Enterprise, _beam us up."


End file.
